Sheffield’s Sherlocks Living for Moment of album release

Graham Walker

Live for the Moment is the long-awaited debut album from Sheffield favourites The Sherlocks and the moment is finally here – it is out tomorrow.

But the moment the boys are really living for, when they get their chart position, is next week and looks set to happen while they are on stage at Leeds Festival.

The album charts are announced late Friday afternoon on Radio 1.

With fans and pundits predicting it to go top 10 – pre-sales are already running into the thousands – the stage really is set for a dream come true and the biggest moment of their lives.

We caught up with the two sets of Bolton upon Dearne brothers, frontman Kiaran Crook, his brother Brandon, on drums, guitarist Josh Davidson and his brother Andy on bass, while they were recording the album – see exclusive video footage online – at the world famous Rockfield Studios in Monmouth, South Wales.

It is where Queen turned out Bohemian Rhapsody and icons Oasis, The Stone Roses, Coldplay, Paul Weller, Kasabian, Manic Street Preachers, Stereophonics and more have all recorded.

Chart-toppers Blossoms’ self-titled album went straight to number one in August last year with 7,948 sales. But can The Sherlocks do it with Live For The Moment?

Kiaran is in no doubt

“Definitely,” he says. “It’s an unbelievable debut album. I’m so proud of it.”

He describes it as “the soundtrack of seven relentless years of hard graft”, which has seen them play more than 1,000 gigs, starting out in working men’s clubs playing The Jam and The Beatles covers.

They have since grown a massive social media following and sell out shows wherever they headline – recent shows include Glastonbury, supporting Kings Of Leon at Sheffield Area and a packed ‘secret’ gig during Sheffield’s Tramlines at Crystal Bar, which reached more than 200,000 people on The Star’s Facebook Live stream.

Brandon says Live For The Moment was an obvious name for their album after the same titled debut single attracted a huge fan following – but he says they have re-recorded new versions of all the early releases for the album.

The Sheffield Hallam University law graduate says: “We class the early stuff as demos now, like Live For The Moment. We’ve pumped them up on steroids, trying to show the direction we want to go.

“Those early recordings didn’t do the songs justice. Now they are up to scratch.

“We chose the songs for the album based on what goes down well when we are gigging. It’s like the greatest hits for our first album.”

Kiaran says: “We didn’t want to be one of those bands releasing our album prematurely.

“We wanted to build it up, until you can’t get any bigger and you’ve got to release your album.”

Josh adds: “It’s still us, the same people on every track, so everything still sounds like The Sherlocks, but there are obviously a few surprises in there – a side to us that people have not heard before.

And Andy says: “I think fans will hear things they probably didn’t think we were capable of, because not a lot of bands do what we’ve done on our first album. We’ve pushed the boundaries.”

They were in the expert hands of top producer Gav Monaghan, who has worked with them from the start and recorded The Twang and Editors, producing Nizlopi’s chart-topping JCB song in 2005.

He says: “The competition to make this album was fierce because everybody wanted to work with The Sherlocks.

“I’m glad they picked me because I honestly believe we’ve smashed it.

“Fans will be absolutely blown away. What makes them successful is their songs, lyrics and hooks.”

Live for the Moment is out on Friday, August 18. The Sherlocks play Sheffield’s O2 Academy on Saturday, October 23 – for tickets see sheffieldacademy.co.uk

Trending

Huge blaze breaks out at South Yorkshire industrial unit

Yorkshire Day: 47 words and phrases you would only ever hear in Yorkshire